This week I learned a lot more about Amy Winehouse and discovered how talented she truly was. I had no idea she only released two albums during her lifetime I always assumed she had a made a few before her death. I also didn’t realize she started he career so early, before “Rehab” I can’t recall seeing or hearing much about her. I remember when that song first came out and I couldn’t think of any other singer who sounded or looked like her at the time in pop/R&B music. I was not interested in pop music so I didn’t pay much attention to her and figured she would be one of those artists who gains a lot of attention for a year or two then settles down and remains a popular act but fades into the background more or less (such as Carly Rae Jepsen or Sara Bareilles for example). As we talked about I remember her receiving a lot of media attention because of her “scandals” such as her drug use problems. When she died I was surprised but it did not have much of a significance to me since I did not listen to her music. After hearing how talented of a singer she truly was I now regret not paying more attention to her career when she was alive. Her diverse style and the evolution from her first album to her second is quite impressive. I thought her rendition of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” was just as good as, if not in some ways better than, the original. She was able to really make the song personal and more emotional compared to the original which is more of a standard bubblegum pop song aimed for teens to make album sales. You can hear in her music that she had a deep love for jazz, blues, soul, and 60’s R&B music where she drew inspiration from. I think she was pretty authentic in portrayal of herself and what she sang about. She chose to write and sing about topics that were more commonly used in rock music but she took them into a jazz/soul world where most of the time the lyrical content revolves around the typical relationship and romance between a man and a women. She wasn’t afraid to sing about the more taboo topics that weren’t as high class and sophisticated as other singers of her style of music often sang about, and for that I think she was groundbreaking in a similar sense to what Madonna did for female pop singers in the 1980s. After learning so much about her I am tempted to start listening to her albums and discover her music aside from the few singles I know. One thing for sure is when she died the music industry definitely lost a great singer-songwriter who had a lot more to offer than she was able to release during her lifetime.

Personally I am not a fan of EDM but I can sometimes appreciate certain artists. During the presentation when we learned about Parov Stelar and listened to his song I was able to appreciate that style of EDM. I think by using old swing music and remixing it into new EDM songs it gives the older songs a new life that a traditional cover or remix does not. While I’m not sure if I could call it a “new” song it is certainly different from the original in a unique way. I think when artists like Daft Punk go and record their own music then sample and arrange it into EDM is the only time you can really call it an original song. I feel that other artists who rely solely on samples and just make a beat behind it are basically just making remixes rather than original songs. In rap and hip-hop DJs go about making a beat in a similar way except the way they arrange the samples, and the fact that rappers make new original lyrics, is what I feel separates it from EDM. In EDM there is no singing except for the samples and the way they’re arranged is stylistically different from hip-hop that makes it feel less original and more copied in my opinion. Before the presentation I was unaware of how many different styles of EDM existed, I only knew of EDM as an umbrella term for techno and dubstep. I knew electro-swing was a sub-genre because I had seen some songs online but I didn’t think it was as popular as it really is. It’s interesting to see how popular EDM is in a global sense much like pop and rock music. I have a couple of friends who like EDM and two that are very heavily into it, they sometimes try to show me artists they’re into but it’s just not really my thing. I try to be open minded and listen when they show me and point out any aspects that stand out to me. One of them actually makes their own EDM music and has gotten somewhat successful from it around town, he has even played some clubs in New York a few times. Before he was making EDM music he was a heavy metal drummer and I think that background it was separates his original music from other EDM artists. He actually creates his own music using MIDI rather than relying on samples and the way he creates his melodies and hooks has a different feel to it than other aspiring EDM artists. Had he not had a rock and metal background I think his music would sound more like traditional EDM but because he has a different background it helps him to create EDM songs in ways other EDM artists don’t think of and he uses it to his advantage. Sometimes he will even record himself playing drums and then sample it in his EDM songs, or he will make a song using MIDI then record himself playing drums to it and use that as part of the beat. Often times he will record our friends who play guitar and sample a few chords and licks and incorporate them into his songs. One time he even sampled me playing guitar when we were hanging out and jamming and later used it in one of his songs. While it’s not something that is my cup of tea, I can find aspects of it interesting and I’m proud my friend has been successful in his endeavor thus far. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he “makes it” in the genre in a few years.

For my presentation I will be presenting the garage rock revival that has been ongoing sine the early 2000s. While it is not actually the first garage rock revival it is usually referred to as the “garage rock revival” or “garage punk revival” by most mainstream forms of media when discussing  contemporary rock music. The reason I chose this genre is because it is one of my favorite styles of rock and modern music. While garage rock originally started in the 1960s and garage punk caught on in the 1990s underground, I feel the revival that has been ongoing since the 2000s is the best form of garage rock music since it has so many predecessors to draw inspiration from and often implements other forms of music with it. Usually styles ranging from psychedelic rock, experimental music, folk, soul, hard rock, and more the current wave of garage rock/garage punk bands have a lot to make new and even more ambitious garage music than their originators. I had a difficult time choosing a song I felt was representative of the genre. While I could have picked a White Stripes or Black Keys song and taken the easy way out I felt that wouldn’t be fair since both of those band have a heavy blues aspect to their music that not all garage bands have. So I was faced with choosing between two of my favorite contemporary acts, garage/psychedelic rock band Thee Oh Sees or garage/psychedelic/alternative rock artist Ty Segall. Ultimately I went with Ty Segall because his early work heavily emulates the garage punk sound of the 1980-1990s while also reminiscent of 1960s garage rock. As he has continued his career he has strayed farther away from his minimalist garage roots and explored more styles with his maturing sound. I have chosen to present his song The Drag from his debut album which was one of his first hit songs in his early solo career. The song itself is very minimal but also very loud which is reflective of earlier garage punk bands. The actual structure of the song and it’s lyrics are more similar to many 60s garage rock songs. While listening to this song for this project and then listening to his newest album for fun, the comparison between his material is almost night and day. His newest album is reminiscent of many artists of the 1970s while there is still loud guitars, punk attitude, and garage rock tones; the songs themselves do not sound very “garage rock” instead more like “classic rock”. Half the album is made up of calmer songs, including some folk tunes, and the other half being epic loud guitar rock. I’d say his last “garage” album was his 2014 release Manipulator which he aimed for more of a psychedelic/pop sound similar to The Beach Boys, The Beatles, T. Rex, David Bowie, etc. Since then he has released an experimental album and now this “classic rock” album. Regardless he always maintains some element(s) of garage rock music in his sound, whether it takes the forefront or sits on the sidelines seems to depend on his mood lately.

Of all the rock/pop superstars of the 1980s the one who I am most familiar with is Phil  Collins thanks to my father. My dad’s absolute favorite band of all time is Genesis and he loves anything relating to it but his favorite member and solo career of the members is Phil Collins. For as long as I can remember my dad has listened to Genesis and Phil Collins on a weekly basis and he never grows tired of hearing their music over and over again. My mother likes some of his songs and Genesis’s more commercial/pop period from the 80s but they aren’t necessarily her favorite. She often jokes that whenever Phil Collins’s music plays on the radio or in a grocery store when she is out and about without my dad that his music is “haunting” her where ever she goes. I’ve even jokingly claimed that In The Air Tonight was probably the first song I heard as a baby. Growing up as a kid I didn’t care much for Phil Collins or Genesis because I mostly knew them as some 80s band my dad loves, but as I began to listen to music on my own and discovered their progressive rock era, led by Peter Gabriel, at the beginning of high school I began to appreciate them more. Now that I’m older I even appreciate some of his solo albums however I’m still not overall into his love ballad pop songs or more commercial sounding Genesis songs. As an artist though and as a musician I have tons of respect for Phil Collins especially as a drummer. Most people only know him for the songs like I mentioned before but in Genesis’s progressive rock era and his time in jazz fusion band Brand X, Phil showcased how talented he truly is as a drummer and in my opinion is very underrated today. I would defend his drumming abilities as equal to other rock drummers such as John Bonham, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, etc. As a singer, songwriter, and overall musician he is very talented but again I feel most people can not look past his more embarrassing songs of the 80s and 90s to see how great of an artist he really is. Not everything he did in the 1980s was bad or cheesy either! His minimal rhythmic drumming style that he used on songs like In The Air Tonight , I Don’t Care Anymore, Peter Gabriel’s Intruder, etc. was iconic for pop music drumming and made him one of the most prominent drummers of the decade leading him to play with other rock legends such as Eric Clapton and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin. Many of his 80s hits have been sampled by tons of hip-hop and R&B artists and  are continued to be sampled even now. While I’m sure no one is a fan of songs like Sussudio almost everyone likes In The Air Tonight and I think that in itself is reflective of how most people view Phil Collins. Many people can recognize his talent but are more likely to write him off as being awful and cheesy. Personally I recommend his 70s work even though it was his 80s hits that launched him to the pop cultural icon he is today.

After reading chapter Punk The Sound of Criticism? in the reader I have a little more insight to a period of music history which fascinates me. Basically the article is about a rock journalist observing a music festival at CBGB’s in the summer of 1975 during the beginning of the first wave punk movement right before the punk explosion in 1977 when it really hit the mainstream. He details what CBGB’s looked like and the general atmosphere of the festival, then begins to mention the now iconic bands Television, the Talking Heads, and briefly The Ramones. He goes on about how punk is the kind of music that is “saving”  rock from the over the top arena rock of the day. He also draws a lot of comparisons to the punk bands and the Velvet Underground and the Warhol art movement of the late 1960’s. I personally found this article to a be little ironic since the author goes on about how these bands and this movement aren’t pretentious yet he writes about them in a pretentious way (or at least to me he comes off as pretentious). I disagree with some of his description of Television and his comparison of Tom Verlaine to Keith Richards, but do love his short depiction of The Ramones. I also agree to an extent that the Talking Heads may have been the closest band of that scene to be the most “Velvet Underground-ish” because both bands had such an odd way of going about making music which made them both so unique to themselves. Towards the end he asks the question if these bands will ever become bigger than just CBGB’s regulars but in the end it doesn’t matter which made me laugh only because he had no idea how iconic these bands would become in the years to follow or how popular the Talking Heads would be. One of the reasons I deeply enjoy punk music and the culture of it is because this initial scene in New York in the mid to late 1970’s which focused on making music that had a message and allowed people to freely express themselves however they wanted regardless of musical skill. This notion appeals greatly to me and is what I believe punk it truly about which is why a band like the Sex Pistols rub me the wrong way in some aspects since they seemed (or at least some members of the band seemed) to be more focused on fashion and using punk as an excuse to party all the time and act like animals rather than express ideas the way many American punk bands did. Not to say the NY bands didn’t focus on punk fashion and party a lot, but they didn’t seem to let it get in the way of their music.

Personally I view the development of popular music genres such as rock and pop music to be a positive thing. I think when artists experiment and push the genre into new territories (such as many rock artists did in the 1960’s) it leaves room for artists after them to continue the progression they started or to mix and blend these new styles. I think when a genre sticks to the same format and never changes it stagnates the genre, but also leads fans to become bored with it very quickly after the initial fascination dies down and something new takes it’s place in mainstream society. Even though early rock ‘n’ rollers such as Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, etc. were popular at the time had bands such as The Beatles, Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, etc. stayed in that formula of simple R&B based music about sex and cars I feel rock music’s popularity would have fizzled out and many people would have lost interest in it. Because of the artists of the 1960’s changing and experimenting more by pushing boundaries with new recording technology rock’s development not only enticed audiences but showed the larger music community that this was a serious form of music and not just a “teenybopper trend” as it was viewed in it’s earlier years. By the time rock was established in the 1970’s many bands seemed to have perfected the genre and their own individual sounds whether they chose to draw on already established styles (ex. Led Zeppelin), continue with experimentation (ex. Pink Floyd), or return to rock’s roots (ex. the Ramones). I think development becomes detrimental when artists don’t know how to keep themselves grounded and experiment too far in certain directions, a prime example being the progressive rock movement in the 1970’s. While it established the complexity and intellect of rock music was sometimes too pretentious and ridiculous with 10+ minute songs featuring four keyboards, two guitars, two drummers, etc. which is what sparked first wave punk rock groups to return to the simple early rock ‘n’ roll format. I think the balance is needed for a genre to continue to grow and develop in a healthy manner because when you only have one direction it looses audiences, depth, and appeal. With both complex and simple forms of rock music coinciding it gave birth for a steady middle ground to develop the genre further with bands such as Fugazi and Sonic Youth in the late 1980-1990’s. Bands such as them were able to make “simple” complex rock music or “complex” simple rock music depending on how you look at it. I think a good modern example of a band that continues to develop the genre without becoming too over the top with experimentation are The Strokes who take influence from older rock but experiment with newer sounds. While their newest music is not as critically or culturally acclaimed as their earlier work they manage to keep evolving as a group by exploring various aspects of rock music (new and old) to maintain a new style.

As we were discussing the roots and early history of blues, R&B, gospel, and rock ‘n’ roll I could help but think of one artist who was one of the biggest and most important influences on all of those genres and I was surprised we didn’t mention her in class. That artist is Sister Rosetta Tharpe who started her recording career in 1938 and was already playing guitar in a rock ‘n’ roll fashion while singing gospel and R&B music. Many of the early rock ‘n’ rollers such as Little Richard have cited her as a big influence on their music, and he especially acknowledged her influence on him for mixing gospel and R&B together similar to how he did in his own career. Her guitar playing and singing style were unique to her at the time which is what made her so popular to audiences and helped her become one of the first cross-over stars of gospel music. While other blues guitar players started playing the electric guitar and incorporating the styles they had crafted on acoustic slide guitar, Tharpe’s rhythmic playing deviated from other blues styles. Her guitar playing could have been speculated to have been influenced by the blues, jazz, and/or folk music but since she picked up the instrument as a child it could have been something she made up just on her own. No matter how she came to craft that style it would definitely become a direct influence on all of the early rock guitarists of the late 40’s-1950’s.
Unfortunately it seems that in our modern world she has been left in the shadows of music history like many of the foundational artists who shaped almost all of the genres we listen to today. It’s confusing to me because of how talented she was but also because many popular artists of the 1940’s-1960’s have openly praised her, and yet somehow she still doesn’t seem to be recognized in the way she should or receive the credit she deserves. Perhaps if the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted her as an early influence, or she received something like a Grammy lifetime achievement award should would start to become more acknowledged in our current era. The fact that the Grammy’s have inducted her songs into their hall of fame but have not awarded her as an artist is quite silly to me. Then again not everything is about awards and fame but it would seem like an injustice to modern music history to just leave her legacy in the dust to be forgotten. Perhaps if her fans spread the word of her music and educated those who don’t know of her she could become more appreciated and acknowledged culturally in that way.